ISSN 1061-933X, Colloid Journal, 2013, Vol. 75, No. 2, pp. 214–225. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2013.
Original Russian Text © A.N. Filippov, D.Yu. Khanukaeva, S.I. Vasin, V.D. Sobolev, V.M. Starov, 2013, published in Kolloidnyi Zhurnal, 2013, Vol. 75, No. 2, pp. 237–249.
214
INTRODUCTION
Development of the science of the interfacial sur-
face interactions and nanotechnologies is attracting
attention to studying micro- and nanosized objects
and systems, including porous bodies, membranes,
and thin capillaries. In such studies, researchers
encounter peculiar behaviors of liquids in thin layers,
capillaries, and pores. It is clear that the dynamics of
flows in channels bounded by solid and/or porous
walls may be adequately described, provided that the
physics of nonequilibrium processes that take place at
a liquid–solid interface is clear. Often, the classical
boundary condition of sticking (non-slipping), which
has been used for more than a century [1, 2], cannot
adequately describe experimental data on liquid flows
in nanosized channels. Therefore, the study of the
character of liquid flows near solid surfaces has now
become of not only theoretical, but also great practi-
cal, significance. In particular, when extracting oil
reserves that are residual or difficult to extract from
porous rocks, various polymers (polyelectrolytes),
ionic surfactants, or gases are added to displacing flu-
ids. This causes a noticeable change in the character of
oil flow in micropores due to a reduction in the viscous
friction in boundary layers. As a result, the coefficient
of oil displacement from a porous medium may be sig-
nificantly increased. The data on the hydrodynamic
forces that act on molecularly smooth hydrophilic sur-
faces [3–9] are adequately described by the Reynolds
lubrication theory with the use of the sticking condi-
tions. However, molecularly smooth surfaces are
extremely rare. Commonly, surfaces are rough,
porous, or rough and porous simultaneously. In prac-
tice, we encounter liquid flows in channels or pores
with such surfaces. They can be exemplified by flows
in capillary chromatographic columns [10–12]; pro-
cesses of wetting and spreading of liquids on porous
surfaces [13, 14]; and tangential flows of solutions
between planar walls of apparatuses covered with
membranes [15–18], solid particles [19–22], proteins
[23–27], and monomolecular [28, 29] or bimolecular
[30] layers of polyelectrolytes. In all these cases, a liq-
uid partly flows either inside a porous layer or near a
rough surface. The effective velocity of a liquid flow
may be reduced in these situations. At the same time,
the covering of surfaces with hydrophobizing layers
causes an increase in the liquid flow velocity, which is
related to a slip on an interfacial surface [31, 32]. The
degree of deviation from complete sticking is com-
monly characterized by a parameter that is referred to
as the slip length, which represents a distance such that
the extrapolation of the weighted velocity profile to
which yields the zero flow velocity.
Brenner was the first to consider the effect of
roughness on the boundary conditions [33]. He
showed that, when rough spheres are flowed around,
the first-order contribution of the roughness parame-
ter to the drag force is only made by two harmonics.
The first harmonic is just a shift in an average sphere
size, and, when the roughness level is defined by some
mean line, only the second harmonics remains. It is of
importance that the numerical coefficient at the latter
is 0.2. Thus, at a low roughness level (lower than 0.3),
the contribution of the second harmonic is very small
Liquid Flow inside a Cylindrical Capillary with Walls Covered
with a Porous Layer (Gel)
A. N. Filippov
a
, D. Yu. Khanukaeva
a
, S. I. Vasin
a
, V. D. Sobolev
b
, and V. M. Starov
c
a
Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, Leninskii pr. 65 bld. 1, Moscow, 119991 Russia
b
Frumkin Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences,
Leninskii pr. 31, Moscow, 119071 Russia
c
Department of Chemical Engineering, Loughborough University Ashby Rd., Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE 11 3TU, UK
Received May 5, 2012
Abstract—Viscous incompressible liquid flow in a long cylindrical capillary, the internal surface of which is
covered with a permeable porous layer, is studied within the frameworks of three mathematical models. In the
first model, the liquid flow in the porous layer is described by the Brinkman equation; according to the second
one, the presence of the porous layer is taken into account using the Navier slip boundary conditions; and, in
the third model, the Navier condition is imposed on the porous layer–liquid interface, with the flow inside
the porous layer being excluded. The theoretical predictions are compared with the experimental data that
one of us has obtained for liquid flow rates in porous capillaries. The validity and appropriateness of the appli-
cation of the proposed models are discussed.
DOI: 10.1134/S1061933X13020051